


above, beneath, betwixt, between

by shellybelle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Blood, But not really scary, Friends to Lovers, Halloween, Haunted Haus, M/M, Mild Injury, Spooky, creepy imagery, like...Stranger Things level of creepiness I guess?, use your judgment kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-27 16:45:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: It doesn’t start on a dark and stormy night.Later, Dex will think: that’s what lured them into the false sense of security. It’s hard to imagine your new room being haunted when you move in on such a nice day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me, young, naive, idiotic: what if i wrote some kind of short halloween-y nurseydex fic today  
> me, getting to work and seeing my to-do list: what the fuck is wrong with me

Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind,

Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,

Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,

Above, beneath, betwixt, between.

Neil Gaiman, _The Graveyard Book_

 

 

It doesn’t start on a dark and stormy night.

 

Later, Dex will think: that’s what lured them into the false sense of security. It’s hard to imagine your new room being haunted when you move in on such a nice day.

 

…

 

“Ow!” Nursey says. “Fuck!”

 

Dex glances up from where he’s unpacking shirts into the (unevenly) shared closet. Nursey is glaring at the bookshelf, one forefinger stuck in his mouth. “What happened?”

 

“Splinter,” Nursey says, the word muffled around his finger.

 

Dex rolls his eyes, but puts the hanger down and gets to his feet. “Let me see.”

 

Nursey gives him a wary look, but extends his hand as Dex comes over. Dex takes his wrist and peers at the finger in question, trying not to pay too much attention to the glisten of moisture on Nursey’s skin or to think too hard about the source of it.

 

When he sees the actual splinter, he whistles. “Jesus,” he says, a little impressed despite himself. “What’d you do, Nurse, drag your hand against the grain?”

 

“I barely touched it!” Nursey protests. He chews his lower lip. “Should I get some tweezers or something?”

 

“Nah, this is faster.” Dex keeps a hold on Nursey’s wrist, tugs the pocketknife out of his jeans, calmly ignores Nursey’s yelp of “Dex what the _fuck_?” and pries the splinter out easily, without drawing a single drop of blood. “Got it,” he says, triumphant.

 

Nursey squirms away from him, holding his hand protectively against his chest. “What the _fuck_ ,” he repeats. “Do you just _carry_ that?”

 

Dex blinks at him, closing the knife. “I’m from Maine,” he says, which he hopes is enough of an explanation. He looks more closely at the splinter. The last time he saw one this big was in an actual forest. “You’re sure this is from the bookshelf?”

 

“Yeah, dude.” Nursey gestures at it with his uninjured hand. “Like, out of nowhere.”

 

“Huh.” Dex drops the splinter into the trash and walks over to the bookshelf, leaning over to look at it. He frowns at it, setting a hand against the finely-sanded wood. “ _This_ bookshelf?”

 

Nursey huffs. “ _Yes_.”

 

“It’s just that this is like...totally smooth, man.”

 

“I’m _telling_ you,” Nursey insists. “It fucking _bit_ me.”

 

Dex sighs. Being roommates with Nursey is getting off to a great start.

 

“Let me put the rest of your books away,” he says. “If I let you do it, you’ll lose a damn hand.”

 

Nursey grins. “My hero,” he says, and Dex’s heart absolutely _does not_ skip a beat.

 

…

 

“Hey,” Dex says, when Lardo comes to visit. “Can I ask you something kind of weird?”

 

She raises her eyebrows, stretching back on the couch and crossing her legs at the ankles. “Sure, dude,” she says. “Go for it.”

 

“Your mattress,” he says. His mattress, now--they’d installed a bottom bunk under Lardo’s lofted bed for Nursey. “Was it, like, comfortable, when you had it?”

 

Lardo frowns. “Um, yeah. I think so. I mean--it was a cheap IKEA mattress, but, like. Not shitty. Why?”

 

“Uh--”

 

Dex has felt like the title character in Princess and the Pea since their first night in the new room, like the mattress is stuffed full of rocks. He’d nearly accused Nursey of playing some kind of prank on him, except when he’d actually gotten out of bed a few times and pressed his hands into the mattress, it’s soft and giving and normal under his fingers. It’s only when he lies down and tries to sleep that it’s miserable.

 

“No reason,” he lies, knocking his glass of tub juice gently against hers. “Just curious.”

 

…

 

It’s a lot of little things.

 

It’s the splinters that find their way into bare feet and trailing hands, so frequently that Dex keeps a pair of flip-flops next to the bunk bed and Nursey refuses to be barefoot in the room and they start exchanging uneasy looks before they touch the bare wood of the furniture.

 

It’s weird moaning sounds that ache through the walls but disappear the second they step out into the hallway.

 

It’s electric outlets that stop working in the middle of the night and lamps that spark when they’re plugged in or turned on.

 

It’s a lot of little things.

 

Until it’s not.

 

…

 

Dex has always been a light sleeper, but he’s not sure what wakes him.

 

He stares, bleary-eyed and a little confused, up at the ceiling, trying to figure out why he’s awake.

 

The bed sways.

 

It’s immediately disorienting, and he grabs at the wall, alarmed. “The fuck,” he says, because he’s on the top bunk and that’s _weird_. He hears a creak, and then the unmistakable sound of splintering wood.

 

His blood runs cold. “Nursey,” he says, trying to hold perfectly still. “Nursey.”

 

Beneath him, Nursey mumbles his name, his voice still thick with sleep. Dex swallows. “ _Nursey_.”

 

“Dex?”

 

“Get out of bed.”

 

“Wha?” Nursey sounds sleepy and confused. “Why?”

 

“Because,” Dex says, trying to keep his voice calm but still get the urgency across, “the bed’s gonna--”

 

He falls.

 

For a moment there’s just impact and shock and pain, the dazed confusion of lying in a pile of wood and mattress and metal. And then--

 

“Nursey,” he gasps, and scrambles off his mattress, pushing frantically at broken pieces of the bunk bed until he can haul Nursey out from under it. Nursey gropes a little dazedly at his arms but lets Dex pull him up against his chest. “Are you alright? Are you okay?” Their room is dark, and he can’t tell if Nursey’s hurt or bleeding or anything, and he’s freaking out. “Nursey?”

 

“I’m fine,” Nursey says. “I think. I think I’m okay.”

 

The door connecting their room and Chowder’s flies open and he flings himself into the room, flipping the light on and staring at them in horror. “I heard the crash,” he said. “Holy _shit_ , are you guys okay?”

 

In the sudden light, Dex can see a smear of blood on Nursey’s temple, and his stomach twists. “You’re bleeding,” he says.

 

Nursey touches his fingers to his scalp, and shakes his head. “I think it’s okay,” he says, but before he can say anything more, there are pounding footsteps outside, and Bitty all but throws himself through their door, Ollie and Wicks at his heels.

 

“What in the _hell_ is going on in here?”

 

Nursey rolls his eyes and points at the beds. “Boom,” he says dryly.

 

Bitty follows his gaze and blanches. “Good lord,” he says. “Were you two in bed?”

 

Dex’s face heats at the phrasing--and because Nursey’s still sprawled against his chest, and doesn’t seem to be making any move to lean away--and he clears his throat. “Yeah.”

 

“Sweet Jesus,” Bitty says, looking horrified. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed, Nursey.”

 

Nursey grins. “You calling Dex fat, Bits?”

 

Dex scowls at him, grateful for the excuse to do something other than blush. “You’re lucky you’ve got a head injury, man.”

 

“I’m calling SEMCo,” Bitty says, decisive. “You two need to be checked out. Come downstairs and I’ll heat some pie up for y’all.” Dex huffs a sigh, but nods--calling Samwell’s student medical service was better than calling a real ambulance.

 

He gets gingerly to his feet, and then, carefully, helps Nursey up to his. “You sure you’re okay?”

 

Nursey nods, though the blood on his face is still making Dex nervous. “Sorry I didn’t listen to you,” he says, leaning against his shoulder. “You were trying to make me get up.”

 

“I had a weird vibe,” Dex admits. “I thought that maybe--” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. C’mon, let’s get you some ice for your head.”

 

As soon as they step over the threshold of their room into the hallway, a weird feeling comes over him--as if something that’s been clinging to him has suddenly been forced to let go. Dex stops short, shivering.

 

Next to him, Nursey is standing as if frozen. “Um,” he says. “Did you--did you feel that?”

 

“Yeah.” Dex swallows. “It was. It was weird, right?”

 

Nursey nods. He looks over his shoulder, back into their room, and Dex follows his gaze. The room looks normal--well, normal except for the giant pile of broken bunk bed and mattresses on the floor--and dark and quiet, nothing lurking or strange, but Dex can’t shake the feeling that there’s something _wrong_ in it.

 

“Hey,” Nursey says. “You wanna--you wanna see if C’ll let us crash in his room tonight?”

 

“I really hugely do,” Dex says.

 

He wraps an arm around Nursey’s waist to help him down the stairs, gentle of the bruises he’s almost definitely pretending not to have gotten from the collapsing bed. He focuses on ignoring the warmth of Nursey’s skin and making sure that none of the hitches in Nursey’s breathing sound pained.

 

Dex doesn’t catch the moonlight reflecting off something small and silver on the floor of their room as they make their way down the stairs.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have to choose,” says the Thing in his dreams.
> 
> The room is dark and cold, and Dex is shivering. He’s wearing clothes, but he feels naked. He doesn’t remember what choice he’s being asked to make, only that he doesn’t want to. "No."
> 
> “Fine,” says the Thing. The Thing is made of shadows, but Dex can see its teeth as it grins, and they are very sharp. It’s holding something in its claws. “Then let something else choose for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: I'M GONNA FINISH THIS RIGHT AFTER HALLOWEEN  
> also me: update schedule? consistent chapter length? story pacing? i don't know them

 

When he gets home from what feels from the longest day ever--which starts with their athletic trainer telling Dex to make sure Nursey doesn’t climb on anything taller than a stepstool and ends with the programming quiz from hell--the _last_ thing Dex wants to do is clean up a pile of broken bunk bed and figure out where he and Nurse are going to sleep tonight.

 

Except that when he reaches the door of their room, he runs into Nursey’s back, because Nursey’s standing in the doorway, staring.

 

“Uh,” he says. “The fuck, dude?”

 

Nursey points into their room. “Bed,” he says.

 

Dex looks around Nursey’s arm, and--

 

Oh, yeah. Okay. Bed.

 

Where this morning there had been a pile of mattresses and wood and loose screws, there’s now a new set of bunk beds that looks a lot nicer and sturdier than their old one. They’ve already been made up with clean sheets and pillows, Dex’s on the top bunk, Nursey’s on the bottom.

 

“What,” Dex says, “the actual fuck.”

 

“Yeah,” Nursey says. “My thoughts exactly.”

 

He heads into the room, Dex trailing him suspiciously. Dex feels a weird prickle go over his spine as soon as he crosses the doorway and forces himself to ignore it, telling himself that it’s just psychological at this point, and sits down in the desk chair as Nursey plucks off a Samwell-red envelope that’s been taped to the bed’s ladder and opens it. There’s a card inside, and Nursey skims it and then snorts.

 

Dex raises his eyebrows. “What?”

 

“We’ve got an NHL sugar daddy,” Nursey says, handing it to him. Dex takes the card. It’s blank on the front, but inside, in Jack’s scrawling script, is written, _Try not to break anything else, you’re first line now. - Jack_

 

Dex snorts. “I can’t tell if he cares more about us or the team’s record when Bitty’s captaining,” he says. He taps the card against his leg, looking at the bed, trying not to think about how much it might have cost. He knows Jack’s got more than enough money to spare, but--

 

“Don’t do that,” Nursey says.

 

“Don’t do what?”

 

“ _That_.” Nursey nudges Dex’s ankle with his toes. “With your face. Where you look like you’re about to text Jack to ask if he’ll take some of your money.”

 

Dex flushes. “I--”

 

“Poindexter.” Nursey crouches down in front of him. It’s weird to be looking _down_ at Nursey, when they’re the same height, and Dex thinks, briefly, that Nursey probably shouldn’t be crouching like that anyway; Dex saw the bruises on his legs from the bed collapsing and they must be pulling in this position, but Nursey doesn’t seem bothered. “Let’s be real. You budget your shit down to the dollar, this kind of thing would throw you off for weeks and stress you out and we’d be miserable. If _I_ offered to pay for it, you’d get pissed and accuse me of flaunting my money or treating you like charity, and we’d be miserable. This is a neutral party, neither of us has to be mad or awkward, it’s a win-win.”

 

Dex bites the inside of his cheek. He kind of hates how well Nursey knows him.

 

Nursey grins like he can read Dex’s mind. “ _And_ ,” he adds, “you know how Bitty gets when Jack does something he likes. There’ll probably be extra pies, and maybe he won’t even make us do suicides at practice tomorrow.”

 

That’s the real way to Dex’s heart. “Alright,” he says, grudging. “I won’t try to pay him back. But we’re gonna send him a thank-you card. A real one, in the mail and shit.”

 

“Of course we are, what do you think I am, some kind of neanderthal?” Nursey gets to his feet, taking off his sweater. He twists to look over his shoulder at Dex, grinning. “I’ll even break out the official Nurse Family stationery for the occasion, how bout that?”

 

“Please tell me you don’t actually have monogramed stationery,” Dex says, pained.

 

Nursey just grins wider. Dex tries to reach for the place inside his head where he used to keep the words _I hate you_ , and finds that it’s just not there.

 

…

 

The thing is, even though the new beds are comfortable and sturdy and stable, Dex...can’t sleep.

 

He lies on his new mattress, tucked into his familiar sheets, and stares at the ceiling. He’s exhausted, eyes heavy, but every time he closes them, starts to drift off, it’s like his inner fight-or-flight instincts activate and jerk him back to consciousness.

 

After the eighth or ninth time, Dex rolls from his side to his back with more force than might be necessary, huffing out an irritated sigh. He reaches up and runs his fingertips over his lucky horseshoe where it hangs on the wall next to his head, a gift from his grandpa, and feels a soothing tingle, but not enough to get to sleep.

 

There’s a rustle from underneath him. “Dex?”

 

Nursey’s voice is hesitant. Dex sits up and leans over the side of the bed. “Nursey?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You can’t sleep either?”

 

Nursey shakes his head, the motion barely visible in the dark room. “It’s stupid, I just keep, uh--” He breaks off and raps his knuckles against the board on the underside of Dex’s mattress. Dex flinches despite himself, trying not to think about the way his stomach had lurched into his throat when he’d realized he was falling, or the way Nursey had been terrifyingly still for a second when Dex had hauled him out from under the pile of broken bed.

 

“That’s not stupid,” he says instead. He swallows. “You wanna switch beds or something?”

 

“Fuck no. I’d freak out even more if--” Nursey cuts himself off again, clearing his throat. “Nah. I’m just restless or something.”

 

Dex tries not to think about what might have been about to come after that _if_. He licks his bottom lip. The room falls uncomfortably silent for a few moments. Dex can hear the creaking moans that never seem to reach past their door. He shivers.

 

“When my brother and I couldn’t sleep, we used to pull my mattress off the bed and watch movies on the floor til we crashed,” he offers finally, anything to break the silence. “My dad used to threaten to take the TV out of our room, but my mom always said to just let us keep it, it was this shit thing that was just a screen with a VCR and a DVD player. We had all my cousins’ old Disney movies and shit up in our room.”

 

Nursey’s quiet. “Netlix?” he offers after a moment.

 

Dex smiles.

 

Together, they wrestle Nursey’s mattress onto the floor--it fits better into the frame of this bed than the old one--and drag the pillows and comforter off Dex’s bed so that they don’t fight over them. Nursey pulls up Netflix on his laptop, and Dex scrolls through movies and picks _Lilo and Stitch_.

 

“Oh my God,” Nursey says, when he sees it.

 

“What?”

 

Nursey’s smile is vaguely self-deprecating in the blue light of the screen. “Nothing, I’m just gonna probably bawl all over you.”

 

“Well, bawl quietly,” Dex says, punching his pillow down and wrapping his comforter around his shoulders as he settles down on his stomach to watch the movie. “C’ll be pissed if you wake him up.”

 

As it turns out, Nursey doesn’t bawl at all--he falls asleep with his head on Dex’s shoulder less than ten minutes into the movie. Dex looks down at him, takes in the way his curls are squashed against Dex’s t-shirt and the small lines of tension and anxiety that always hover around his face are actually gone and his fingers twitch slightly where they’ve twined into the sheet, and decides not to push him off.

 

He closes his own eyes, and drifts off to sleep to the sound of Nursey’s breathing and Hawaiian waves.

 

…

 

_“You have to choose,” says the Thing in his dreams._

_The room is dark and cold, and Dex is shivering. He’s wearing clothes, but he feels naked. “I don’t want to choose,” he says. He doesn’t remember what choice he’s being asked to make, only that he doesn’t want to. Every time he thinks about one option or the other, he feels sick to his stomach, hot with anger and cold with terror at the same time._

_“Fine,” says the Thing. The Thing is made of shadows, but Dex can see its teeth as it grins, and they are very sharp. It’s holding something in its claws. “Then let something else choose for you.”_

 

…

 

“Hey,” Nursey says the next morning, as they head to practice. “You okay? You still look tired.”

 

It’s the first thing either of them have said since an awkward exchange of _good morning_ s when they woke up twined together on Nursey’s mattress on the floor, the blankets a mess between their tangled legs, Dex’s arm holding Nursey against his chest.

 

Dex swallows. “Fine,” he says. “Just--I had a really weird dream.”

 

Nursey frowns. “Huh,” he says.

 

Dex glances at him. “What?”

 

“Nothing, just--I had weird dreams last night too.” He shakes his head and nudges Dex. “This must be what Rans and Holster meant by being in-sync with your d-man, huh?”

 

“I think I thought your dreams would have more poetry and fewer shadowy figures telling me to make decisions,” Dex snorts, going for levity.

 

Nursey stops walking, and Dex turns to look back at him. His face is doing something complicated, his features tight, and there’s a strange pale cast to his skin, like the blood beneath it has drained away. “Nursey?” Dex takes a step back toward him. “What is it?”

 

“I didn’t tell you that,” Nursey says, staring at Dex like he’s not sure he’s real.

 

Dex furrows his brow, confused. “Tell me what?”

 

“The dream,” Nursey says. “I didn’t tell you what I dreamed about.”

 

Dex rolls his eyes. “I know, asshole, I was telling you what _I_ \--”

 

It clicks, and he breaks off. Something cold slithers down his spine. He stares at Nursey, who stares back. “What the fuck,” he says.

 

“Yeah,” Nursey says, a little weakly. “What the fuck.”

 

…

 

The dreams keep coming.

 

In one, Dex is treading water, the rink at Faber turned to a bottomless pool. His hockey gear is heavy, weighing him down. The Thing laughs and laughs and laughs, and tells him that as soon as he chooses, he can get out.

 

In another he’s running on the treadmill in the athletic complex, his calves burning, his lungs tight and his breath rasping in his throat. The belt of the treadmill speeds up imperceptibly every time he thinks he can’t run anymore. The Thing presses the button to increase the incline with a shining claw, and says, _“Choose_.”

 

In another he’s out on the lobster boat, hauling up trap after trap after trap, and no matter how many he pulls out of the sea there’s always more, and his hands are bloody from the ropes, stinging from the salt. It’s pouring, and he’s freezing. The boat rocks on a sudden swell, and the Thing’s laughter carries across the waves.

 

(In every dream, there’s someone there with him, in the corner of his eye, just out of sight--someone else in the pool, on the treadmill beside him, on the deck of the boat. He wants to reach for their hand, to beg them to help him.

 

But when he turns his head to really look, he’s always alone.)

 

…

 

Dex claws his way out of another nightmare, biting back the scream that’s still on his lips, and is so relieved to find himself in his bed that for a few moments he just lays there, breathing.

 

It was a bad one, tonight. They vary in intensity, from disturbing to downright horrifying. This one had started in the equipment room at Faber, Dex alone, sharpening his skates on a blade, and then suddenly he’d been walking barefoot on the knife’s edge, half-frozen, trying to keep the teeth of the blade from sinking into the flesh of his feet. The more he walked, the more blood had run down his feet, the harder it became to keep his balance, and he’d heard that fucking _voice_ again, that _laugh_ \--

 

“Laws of physics,” the Thing had said, all but croons in his ear as Dex desperately tried to keep upright. “Two objects cannot occupy the same what simultaneously?”

 

“Space,” Dex had gasped. His feet were bloody, and everything was pain, pain.

 

The Thing had laughed in his ear. “Good. Objects at rest must remain at rest unless they encounter a what?” Dex had shaken his head, lungs burning. The Thing reached out a silver-glinting claw, and flicked at him, just enough to knock him off-kilter. “Ding,” it had said, mocking, like a Jeopardy tone. “What is an unbalanced force?”

 

Now, he wipes a hand over his face, his palm coming away sweaty. He feels gross and clammy, and his mouth is dry. Moving carefully to not wake Nursey, he climbs down the ladder to get his water bottle, but it’s mostly empty. Dex makes a face and plods into the bathroom to fill it, too tired to deal with going all the way down to the kitchen, even though they’re alone in the Haus tonight--Bitty’s in Providence, Chowder’s at Cait’s, and Ollie and Wicks are off on a ‘Bro Trip’ which usually means they’ve decided to follow in Ransom and Holster’s legacy footsteps and have a threesome with a girl on another Samwell team.

 

The second he steps into the bathroom he feels the now-familiar loosening, like something digging into him has reluctantly let him go. Dex shivers and runs his water bottle under the tap, filling it, and takes a long chug, drinking until he can swallow without feeling like there’s a dagger in his throat.

 

Putting the bottle down, he splashes some water on his face, then looks at his reflection in the mirror. He looks tired and drained, too many nights of bad sleep. He knows Nursey looks the same, though they haven’t talked about it, just like they haven’t talked about the splinters in the floor and furniture, or the way their room is colder than the rest of the Haus, or the way they sometimes sleep curled on Nursey’s mattress because it’s the only way either of them will sleep at all.

 

Dex rubs a hand over his face. The last thing he needs to think about is how accustomed he’s getting to falling asleep with his nose tucked into the crook of Nursey’s neck, breathing in the scent of his fancy body wash and probably fancier moisturizer. It’s just a soothing thing. Bro solidarity.

 

(Bro solidarity with a mutual agreement to never talk about certain _totally natural_ bodily reactions to waking up spooned against your bro’s back with his curls in your face and his ass in your lap and fuck it, okay, Dex is maybe jerking off more than he has since he was fifteen but that’s _not the point here_.)

 

Dex turns off the tap and leans against the counter, trying to shake the rest of the dream out of his head so that he can go back to sleep.

 

What the _fuck_ was that, though? He flexes his toes on the floor, the soles whole and free of blood, and shivers. What kind of creepy dream-demon talks in physics problems? It’s not even scary, really--Dex took AP Physics in high school and got a 5 on the test, so fuck _you_ , creepy dream demon--but it’s _weird_.

 

He wonders if, in Nursey’s dreams, the dream Thing asks him questions about poetry he can’t answer.

 

Snorting to himself at the idea, he dries his hands on his pajama pants and picks up his water bottle, stepping back into the room.

 

The chilled, gripping feeling comes over him again, and he immediately stumbles back, hissing through his teeth. “What the _fuck_ ,” he gasps, all but choking on the sudden tightness in his chest, grabbing at the door frame of the bathroom, and he takes another step back--

 

And the feeling vanishes. The second he’s over the threshold and into the bathroom, he’s fine. He’s just... _fine_.

 

Which...what.

 

Cautiously, Dex extends a foot back into the bedroom. Nothing happens. He sets it on the floor. His toes start to tingle. He grits his teeth, and steps the rest of the way into the room.

 

Instantly, he feels like freezing claws are trying to haul him over the threshold, and he hurls himself back into the bathroom, scrambling almost all the way back to the door to Chowder’s room, gasping.

 

“What the fuck,” he breathes. “What the fuck, my room is totally fucking haunted.”

 

It all adds up. The way it’s room is colder than anywhere else in the Haus, the weird noises, the splinters that come out of nowhere, the breaking furniture, the books falling off Nursey’s shelves, the sparking outlets--

 

His room is totally haunted.

 

His room. Which he shares with Nursey.

 

Nursey, who is still asleep.

 

In the haunted room.

 

“Oh _shit_ ,” Dex gasps, and scrambles to his feet just as the door between the bathroom and his bedroom starts to swing closed. He barely manages to fling his body through it, the door catching his ankle as it slams and making him yelp in pain.

 

The noise startles Nursey awake, but just barely. “Dex?” he mumbles, lifting his head off his pillow and peering blearily at him through the darkness. “Y’okay?”

 

“Nursey, get up,” Dex says. He wants to yell it, but it feels like something’s sitting on his chest, keeping his voice low. “Get _up_ , Nursey, our room is haunted.”

 

“What?” Nursey picks his head up properly, squinting at him. “Bro, I don’t know what time it is, but I don’t even have time to talk you out of whatever the fuck white nonsense you have in your brain right now. Can you do it in the morning?”

 

Dex swears under his breath, throws himself across the room and onto Nursey’s bed--“ _oof_ ,” Nursey grunts, “what the _fuck_ ”--and straddles his waist, shaking his shoulders. “ _Hey_ ,” he snaps. “I keep dreaming about a creepy shadow thing. There’s a dream where I’m treading water for hours. There’s a dream where I’m running on a blade and I’m bleeding everywhere. There’s a dream where I’m running on a treadmill and my lungs are burning. And this fucking voice keeps telling me to _choose something_ and I don’t know what, but it all started when we moved in here.”

 

Nursey stares up at him, eyes wide. The room feels suddenly darker than it did a moment ago, but Dex can still see the shock on his face. “You’re still having them too,” Dex says. It’s not a question. He _knows_ it. “The dreams.”

 

“It wants us to choose,” Nursey says, and breaks off. He swallows, and reaches up. He touches Dex’s cheek with the tips of his fingers so gently that it sends a shiver down Dex’s spine--not like the ones that happen when he comes into the room. This is a different kind of shiver altogether. Nursey licks his bottom lip, and Dex tracks the motion like he’s glued to it. “Two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time.”

 

Dex swallows and tries-- _tries_ \--not to lean into Nursey’s touch. “Pauli exclusion principle, okay,” he says. “What about it?”

 

“It’s an evil spirit haunting a room with two people in it, Dex,” Nursey says, slow, like he thinks Dex is an idiot. “What do you _think_ it’s trying to make us choose?”

 

The door to the bathroom slams shut. They both snap their gazes to it.

 

“Um,” Nursey says. Under Dex, he’s gone very, very still. “Too much to hope that that was wind?”

 

“Stay here,” Dex says, getting up.

 

Nursey snorts. “Fuck _that_ ,” he says, pushing his blankets back. “I’m not a fucking damsel, Poindexter, I go where you go.”

 

That shouldn’t make Dex flush, but weirdly, it does. “Fine, let’s...come on.”

 

Walking almost close enough to touch, they shuffle over to the bathroom door. Dex reaches out to touch the handle and immediately jerks his hand back with a hiss. “Fuck!”

 

Nursey grabs his wrist. “What?”

 

“Don’t touch it,” Dex grits out. “It’s fucking--overheated.” The metal knob had felt red-hot under his hand, though it looks cool and innocent now. He sets his jaw.

 

“Fuck,” Nursey mutters. “Okay, move.”

 

Dex looks at him. “What?”

 

“ _Move_ ,” Nursey repeats. He shoves Dex out of the way, looks around as if to check his surroundings, and then kicks, hard, at the door.

 

The door doesn’t budge.

 

Dex raises his eyebrows. “That went a lot more badass in your head, huh?”

 

“Literally fuck you,” Nursey says, scowling. “This door is shitty forty-year-old wood without a lock, it should be off it’s fucking hinges, something’s holding it--”

 

The _Something_ reaches out of the shadows and wraps a clawed hand around Nursey’s throat and _yanks_ him backwards, off his feet and towards the bunks. Nursey reaches out to Dex, his eyes wide with panic, and Dex makes a wild grab back for him, but he misses, the drag too fast.

 

Nursey’s back hits the post of the bed with a sharp _smack_ that makes Dex’s stomach clench, but Nursey doesn’t even cry out. Dex can see shadow-black fingers wrapped around Nursey’s neck, claws digging into the side of his throat, and Nursey’s skin is getting darker, his mouth open, and Dex scrambles across the room to him, trying to pull the Thing off him, but his hand passes through the shadow like it would pass through air. Nursey looks up at him, his eyes wide with terror, and Dex realizes that he’s not--

 

“Breathing,” he gasps. “Oh my god, no. Nursey, Nursey, Derek, you need to breathe. Derek, breathe.”

 

Nursey shakes his head, a minute motion. His lips shape something, and then again: _I can’t_.

 

“No,” Dex says, panic rising in his throat. “No, no no no.” He presses his forehead to Nursey’s. “Please.”

 

 _You didn’t choose_ , the voice from his dreams says. Dex thinks he’s going to throw up. _So I chose for you._

 

“No,” Dex says. “No. I’m your unbalanced force. Fuck it, choose me. Take me, it’s me, just--”

 

And then there’s pain.

 

He’s used to pain. He plays a full-contact sport, he plays it _well_ , he knows how to take pain. But this is _so much more_ than any pain he’s ever been in before. This is like ice in his veins, this is like the time he plunged into the frozen lake out behind his cousin Sean’s house when they were playing shinny and didn’t listen to the warnings about thin ice.

 

Distantly, he can hear things. Yelling. The sound of someone saying his name. Footsteps on wood. A softer noise, like heavy fabric falling from a height. Creaking, like a nail straining.

 

There’s a _thud_ , loud, like a heavy body jumping from something tall, and a voice, _Nursey’s_ voice, begging. “ _Dex_. Dex, please breathe, please don’t let it take you, don’t--”

 

He can barely hear Nursey’s voice over the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins and his pulse hammering in his ears. It sounds anguished and terrified, _broken_ , and that’s--that’s wrong, Nursey should never sound like that. He wants to open his eyes, to look up at him. He thinks it would be nice to see the person he’s dying for.

 

Then again, maybe not. It’s better to just keep his eyes closed, to focus on his mental picture of Nursey, the one he keeps behind his eyelids, the one he’s put together over these last few twisted months: Nursey, slowly coming awake in the morning, sleepy-eyed and soft, his long lashes casting circles on his cheeks. Nursey, his lips curling into a small smile as he opens his eyes, and focuses on Dex, their foreheads close enough to touch--

 

It’s worth it, he thinks, as he lets the darkness and the pain pull him down. It’s worth it, this choice, he chose _right_.

 

And then something _slams_ into him, _hard_ , with the blunt force of a brick wall, hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, and Dex lets out a choking breath as the pain leaves him faster than it grabbed him in the first place. He’s on his side and not his back, bent double as if he’s been shoved that way, and Nursey’s hands are on him, grasping and desperate.

 

“Dex? _Dex_ , Dex, Will, come on. Come on, babe, look at me, talk to me, come on, talk to me.”

 

He’s babbling and frantic, and that’s not Nursey-ish at all. Dex forces his eyes open. It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it to see Nursey’s face, wide-eyed but still gorgeous, staring down at him. “Nurse,” he slurs. His mouth doesn’t want to work right.

 

Relief floods over Nursey’s face, and he lets out a breathless, shuddering laugh. “Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my fucking god, Will, holy shit, you scared the _shit_ out of me.”

 

There’s the _thump_ of something heavy dropping onto the floor, and then Nursey’s cupping Dex’s face in his hands and pressing their lips together.

 

It’s probably not a very good kiss, as kisses go. Dex is still shaking from the aftermath of adrenaline and pain and Nursey is holding onto him too tightly and they’re both gasping a little too hard to even really do much more than breathe into each other’s mouths.

 

“Fuck,” Nursey mumbles, and wait, Dex thinks, wildly, hold on, _no_. “Sorry.” He starts to pull back, and Dex grabs him by the collar of his t-shirt and hauls him back in.

 

And this is _better_ , it’s so much better, sweet and hot and a little bit desperate, Nursey’s hands in Dex’s hair, on his biceps, clinging to him, and Dex holding on just as tight. And they’re gonna have to talk about this, obviously, because Dex doesn’t know if this is a _thing_ or if it’s just _now_ with the adrenaline and the post-near-death-experience high or but he really hopes it’s a _thing_ , because--

 

Oh, wait, shit.

 

He pulls away, and feels briefly gratified when Nursey makes a wanting noise and tries to chase his lips. “Wait,” he says. “What--where’s the thing?”

 

Nursey swallows, winces at the motion--now that there’s actually _light_ coming into the room from the moon filtering in through the window, Dex can see harsh, wicked bruising around his throat--and then grins. “You know how you gave my friend Ilana shit for being into all that, and I quote, _witchy bullshit_?”

 

“Yeah,” Dex says, warily. He tries to sit up, fails miserably, and settles for propping himself up on his elbows instead.

  
“Well, you better send her a fuckin’ fruit basket, my friend, because me listening to her _witchy bullshit_ just saved our lives.” He holds up something crushed and silvery in one hand, and in the other--

 

Dex makes a distressed noise, reaching out. “Is that my lucky horseshoe?”

 

“Your lucky _iron_ horseshoe,” Nursey says. He sits back, rubbing his neck. “Cold iron plus demonic ghostly shit equals death to the demonic ghostly shit. You’re _welcome_ , by the way.”

 

“Uh, _you’re_ welcome,” Dex says. “I tried to let that thing _kill me_ for you.”

 

Nursey flinches. “Which you will never do ever, _ever_ again,” he says, and he says it casually, like they’re still bantering, but he reaches out and takes Dex’s hand, clings so tightly that Dex feels his bones shift, and Dex squeezes back and then brings Nursey’s hand up to his mouth, kisses his palm. Nursey sucks in a breath, and Dex grins.

 

“What the fuck _was_ it?”

 

Nursey shrugs. “Fuck if I know,” he says. “But whatever it was, it was in the Dibs coin.” He holds up the squished silvery thing again. “Well. The artist formerly known as the Dibs coin.”

  
Dex takes it. It’s been crushed, hammered almost into unrecognizabilty by the horseshoe. Nursey must have really wanted to save him, he thinks, and tries--probably unsuccessfully--to force down his blush. “All that shit about two objects in the same space,” he says. “And being at rest when it shouldn’t be--” He shakes his head. “ _Jesus_.”

 

“I’m sorry but do not even pretend that any kind of exorcism bullshit could have helped us here.” Nursey rubs his forehead, and then looks around their room. “It doesn’t feel cold anymore. It feels like...It feels like Lardo’s room used to. Chill. Good.” He glances sidelong at Dex. “Good vibes, you know?”

 

Dex thinks about it. It does feel different. Cool blue light is coming in from the window, and the room feels cool, but not cold. He runs his fingers over the floorboards, and feels rough wood, but nothing painful, no sudden splinters, no harsh jolt of pins and needles. He sighs in relief, and drops his head back down onto the floor. “Thank fuck,” he says. “You think Coach’ll buy ‘supernatural clusterfuck’ as a reason for us to skip practice tomorrow?”

 

“If only,” Nursey says. He lies down on the floor next to Dex, then reaches up and pulls the comforter down from his bed, pulling it over them.

 

Dex grunts. “We should at least get into bed.”

 

“Too tired,” Nursey says, making himself comfortable with his head on Dex’s chest. “Fought a demon for you. Lemme sleep, Jesus, you’re the most demanding boyfriend.”

 

Dex pauses where he’d been about to readjust to put an arm around Nursey’s waist. “Boyfriend?”

 

Nursey sniffs. “Like you said,” he says. “You were gonna let a demon thing kill you for me. I figure that at least gets you _boyfriend_.” He drapes an arm over Dex’s hips and snuggles closer. “You wanna put a ring on it, you gotta slay a dragon or something, Poindexter.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dex says. He puts his arm around Nursey, closes his eyes, and finally, _finally_ , sleeps without dreams.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shoving copious amounts of MCU fic under the bed* i've never written an action scene ever in my life so idk what this is honestly ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> LISTEN I SAID I WAS GONNA WRITE THE THING AND I WROTE THE THING
> 
> if you wanna yell at me or just tell me it was okay and i shouldn't have so many Feelings, i'm on tumblr: @geniusorinsanity

**Author's Note:**

> SECOND CHAPTER SOON BECAUSE OTHERWISE IT WON'T BE HALLOWEENY ANYMORE
> 
> if you have feelings yell at me here or on tumblr i guess? @geniusorinsanity


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